Hulu hikes up the scare in Super Bowl with 'Castle Rock' spot
Count Hulu in with Netflix and Amazon among those OTT services booking 30-second $5M Super Bowl spots this Sunday.
Last year during the Big Game, Hulu ran a spot for their prestige drama series The Handmaid’s Tale which went on to win the best drama prize at the Primetime Emmys, and this year they’re showing off summer’s J.J. Abrams-Stephen King 10-episode series Castle Rock.
For Hulu, Super Bowl is a bit of a family affair: Their co-parent NBC, which owns 30% of the streaming service, is airing the Big Game between the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles. The Castle Rock spot will play during the second quarter as the two teams head to half time.
We first got a look at Castle Rock during New York Comic-Con and this new trailer shows even more spooky images in the King multiverse with the revelation that André Holland’s character is returning home; having received a call from Shawshank (yes, the correction facility featured in the seven-time Oscar-nominated 1994 film). We pick this into up from his conversation with sheriff Alan Pangborn (Scott Glenn); a King character previously portrayed by Ed Harris in the 1993 movie Needful Things. The spot is still steeped in mystery in regards to what other King characters will appear on the series set in Castle Rock, Maine. As we’ve known for some time, Castle Rock reps the second time in 42 years that Sissy Spacek has starred in a King project following Carrie (She plays Ruth Deaver, not Carrie despite the swirling blood down the drain homage).
Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason serve as EPs/writers of Castle Rock. The series also stars Melanie Lynskey, and Bill Skarsgård.
In total, Castle Rock reps the fourth time in Hulu history that they’ve had a presence during Super Bowl: Previous to last year, Hulu ran spots for 2012’s An Evil(er) Plot to Destroy the World starring Will Arnett and 2009’s Alec in Huluwood starring Alec Baldwin.
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